How to Track Institutional Stock Trades

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If you're contemplating investing in a stock, you want to explore all the reasons of why to invest or why to pass and move on to your next stock target. That means doing your due diligence and leaving no stone unturned. Not to be left out of your research is finding out if Institutions are putting their money where you're thinking of putting yours. Let's see how to track Institutional stock trades through the following steps.

Things You'll Need

• A computer with Internet connection.

Instructions

Let your money follow their money

1. Pick a stock. Once you have a stock you want to pursue, go to the stock quote window of almost any search engine or to any brokerage firm website. Enter the stock symbol and when the quote appears, look for the "research" tab. Sometimes the research options will automatically show up in a box on the same page. Yahoo Finance is a good example for that. The research tools are lined up on the left side of the page.

2. Click on "ownership" or "holdings." Under this tab, you'll see the various entities that own stock in your company. There will be several choices such as "Insiders" and a few others. One of the headings will be "Institutions" or "Institutional." Here you will find a list of Institutions that own the stock. You'll see how many shares they own and what percentage they hold of the shares outstanding.

3. Check to see if you're in good company. What are some of the institutions and are they institutions whose judgment you trust? If what you see peaks your interest, then take it a step further.

4. Track institutional activity. Institutions don't typically broadcast their trades so as not to tip their hands to the competition so there isn't much in the way of tracking real time institutional trades. There used to be something called IWatch which would keep a daily pie chart on institutional trades each day on a particular stock, but that service is no longer in service. What it takes to track the activity is to keep checking the Institutional holdings periodically. If you check back and see there is a change, take note of if there's an increase or decrease in number of shares owned or if one of the institutions has sold out and dropped off the listing completely.

5. Use the information wisely. If after a few weeks or months you notice institutions are increasing their holdings, you know interest is up on the stock. If the number of shares is dropping from institutions, then momentum is slowing and you should try to find out why before investing. Here's hoping you make a bundle!

Tips & Warnings

• Investing in stocks involves risk. Institutional trades are no guarantee of stock performance.